


Come Home To Me

by dei-chan (skyvein)



Series: MakoRin Week 2015 [4]
Category: Free!
Genre: Established Relationship, Light Angst, M/M, MakoRin Week, Post-Canon, me can't english i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5484560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyvein/pseuds/dei-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being without Makoto is like being without colour in his world—he thinks he can stare at all the paints in the universe without reflecting a single hue in his eyes.<br/>//or//<br/>The problems of a long distance relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Home To Me

**Author's Note:**

> ;;w;; oh it's so short.

(i) The hardest part is always telling Makoto when he has to leave again.

The constant hiding of wrinkled plane tickets under his pillow, coffee-ringed and dog-eared with careless treatment, and only ever daring to take them out when Makoto is sound-asleep, squinting in the dark for the date printed on the underside – while the crossed-out numbers on the folding calendar whisper "tomorrow I will tomorrow I will" like a filthy reminder – before stuffing them back in and pretending that time will be kind to the both of them.

Telling Makoto hurts; it's watching the way light would fade from his eyes, flicker like a broken neon signboard—and pray tell, how how _how_  can he possibly have the heart to do that? It's watching Makoto lick his lips, once, twice, then say, in a voice so small and resigned that it makes Rin flinch and bleed dry inside, "I understand." (and sometimes he's so _tentative_  when he speaks, like he's treading uncertain ground.)

And no, no, Rin thinks that he doesn't _want_  Makoto to understand, doesn't want him to give up so quick—he wants Makoto to fight back instead, fight to have Rin stay by his side.

(There are some things you can't fight, but Rin wishes that they can both try to, nonetheless.)

Rin hates it, yes, he hates it—he hates the silent, lost look in Makoto's eyes, bitterly salient despite how he might try to hide it behind saccharin cheerfulness and overly-bright eyes, as he tries to be happy when they both can't. 

Sometimes, Rin'd rehearse for ages, though there really isn't anywhere to go wrong. He'd stand before a mirror, watching the way his own lips would trip in the reflection, trembling like he's about to 'fess up a misdeed—and even then, it does him no good.

"Makoto, I—"

"—should have told you sooner."

And eventually, when his words start tasting like toxic instead of syllables, he'd try to cough them back down, forcing them back into the blood-jet walls of his throat. He'd walk back out, spill his rage on the walls like a broken bottle, and pretend that the blue-blossom bruises on his fists were an accident instead.

Sometimes, Makoto would know, without Rin breathing a single word. Rin can tell—from the melancholy-green insides hidden behind his eyes, the sad touch to his swollen voice when he speaks, the way his touch would linger behind on Rin's skin like a lost soul left to wander free.

"You...You'll be going back to Australia soon, won't you?"

But each time, it hurts the same, and _fuck_ , it hurts so much—

                              like the kind of shape 'yes' would make, against his cracked lips.

* * *

(ii) And then the leaving.

Oh, Makoto likes to sit in the middle of their living room with his clothes clutched tight in his fingers, packing but not-quite-packing, holding the tassels of Rin's scarf close to his chest, eyes jammed shut so tight not even the world could pry them apart, breathing like his heart is in his hands instead of cloth.

Everything else is scattered around him like freckles on skin, pooled at his feet, crumpled on his lap, tucked snug in Rin's suitcase, and Makoto spends the minute-hands on the clock staring at his clothes like he's memorising how each of them used to look on him.

And on their last night, they lie, huddled against each other, and Rin notices how Makoto's fists have never once unclenched, face buried in the nook of Rin's collarbones so that Rin couldn't tell – but can nonetheless feel – that he is crying. He'd whisper 'I love you' thirty one times, in the warmth of their steam-lipped skin, for each of the thirty one days Rin'll be gone. At each word Rin can't help but hold in his breath, as if breathing in might steal Makoto's words from the air and make them resonate just a little less.

Oh, and the car ride to the airport is never silent. It's like they have to make up for every single missed conversation for every day in the future, and Rin swears he cannot stop staring because there is _nothing_  in the entire world as beautiful as the curves Makoto's lips can make, and the sound of his laughter is still blessed achingly-vivid in Rin's mind.

There are so many things Rin can read in Makoto's hug, like picking out the dots and spaces on a never-ending reel of copper Braille, but he breathes in a little of "Take care of yourself, for me"—and knows that had he not been crying so hard, he would have said the same.

When he lets go of Makoto, Rin can't help but think that he feels a little colder, a little more empty, like he's let go of something else as well.

(his heart, perhaps?)

* * *

(iii) And god, next comes the missing—and it comes in waves and waves, choking him, stealing the oxygen from the insides of his ink-black lungs.

Mostly there is cold.

The fragrant cold of the sheets beside him, always empty, like leaving spaces for a name that was miles away. Little mugs with half-a-hearts, their counterparts lost across the sea, and oh, mostly there is silence—the kind that he'd eventually mistake for monotone (but perhaps they were never mutually exclusive.)

There are some things that are dreamt impossible to tell someone—at least, not over the glass of a laptop screen, and he keeps them shut tight inside him, not a single word to be breathed.

Mostly there are pieces of "I love you"s and "I miss you"s that he never tires of, eroding his ambition, leaving maws of longing and yearn that are equally reflected in rueful green. There are times he sits down and wonders why he's still here, and what he can possibly be fighting for—and if he can ever win it without Makoto by his side.

(Being without Makoto is like being without colour in his world—he thinks he can stare at all the paints in the universe without reflecting a single hue in his eyes.)

Sometimes he wishes for something more than a voice behind a crappy speaker and a face pixelated by distance, although by now he can remember how each syllable sounds on Makoto's tongue and the way light jumps off every single look his face can curve into. He reaches out in the dark at night but only grasps the frays of air in his fingers, like a souring reminder, before he goes back to coffee and chamomile and hoping hard that Makoto will never see this weary side of him.

Sleeping at night is frustrating. He feels the lack of shape beside him, making him open his eyes again to watch the monochrome glint of streetlights outside. Letting his fingers linger on the sleek buttons on his phone, he presses 'call'.

_"Rin, it's 3 in the morning for you. What's wrong?"_

_"No, nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice."_

He takes sleeping pills yet they don't do anything but taste frightfully bitter on his tongue.

* * *

(iv) And the hardest part of all that?

It's coming home, because it always hurts to leave Makoto all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> ehe... it's so angsty guh. I apologise. Also this prompt is so incredibly short and I wish I can make it up to you guys in the next prompt but I dunnooo >


End file.
